The “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality has been around since before the Kardashians were even born. Why do you think McMansions even exist?

Every working body should have 4 weeks of vacation, minimum.

There are cheap cars out there. A base Spark is only slightly more expensive than a Yugo would be in 2018 dollars, and is a vastly better car in pretty much every way.

Fastest No, Quickest No, any of the Top Fuel or even the Alcohol drag cars would eat its lunch.

There were already three links on the effectiveness of gun control provided in these comments nearly an hour before Tad said he’d “happily read any studies” so I feel pretty confident in calling that statement a lie, thanks.

What has population density got to do with it?

The real story is that Uber disabled all the Volvo safety features in favor of their own...

Facts are facts, looser laws mean more guns and more violent crime. I’m not anti gun, I’m just pro stricter gun laws.

Liar.

Canada has strict gun laws. 2016 (the latest stats available) had a gun related murder rate of 223. COUNTRY WIDE. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/legal01-eng.htm

Man, you really outed yourself as an idiot with the ol’ “Chicago gun bans don’t work hurr durr” bit.

Giant truck or tiny wheels?

That said, Waymo has released a lot of public data to give confidence that their system did perform well in these situations. We can look at that data and come to our own conclusions.

You are a better man than I! I would have grabbed my gallon of simple green, splashed it on the spill and hosed it out of my driveway

If autonomous cars in general can’t avoid a person in the dark, they should not be on the road today. Maybe it’ll turn out they are all a house of cards and should be pulled, but it seems more likely that Uber is a special case of incompetence.

The real problem is that it’s not automakers fault that people want giant SUVs that are quiet and have all the luxury. You can’t make a 5500 lb SUV with aerodynamics of a brick have great emissions. Until you penalize the CONSUMER for buying these behemoths, all talk about how vehicles affect the environment is stupid.

I’m less concerned about them being an app company and more about their corporate culture of cutting corners at every turn. The last couple years’ media revelations about them should disqualify them from trying something so risky. 

Working on someone else’s car is always less stressful and more fun than working on your own.

I do think it’s time to put some regulations in place; companies should have to get US DOT license to operate autonomous vehicles, and submit both their data and code to review. They should only get a license after passing an extensive period of closed-course testing.

Uber’s not a car company, and it’s not an engineering firm—it’s an app company, full of guys who figured out how to get rich by skirting taxi regulations and taking advantage of a speculative frenzy.